[2] Emily Bauer is a successful psychologist who is living the ideal family life until she is suddenly diagnosed with the dreaded neurological condition called ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

In the beginning stages, she puts up a courageous fight against this terrible affliction, but her condition is deteriorating, which eventually leaves her in a vegetative state.

The New York Times' television critic John J. O'Connor called Right to Die a "rare made-for-television movie that keeps veering away from easy expectations".

[1] Don Shirley of the Los Angeles Times described the first half of the film as "a clunky piece of storytelling that much of the audience may tune out" and wrote that "the woman's joie de vivre is expressed via imagery that looks like it was inspired by commercials (Paul Wendkos directed), and Penningroth's dialogue says all the usual things, in all the usual ways".

[3] Clifford Terry of the Chicago Tribune stated that "the movie, like Whose Life Is It Anyway?, devotes most of its time to tough, complex moral and ethical questions, including a dialogue on the nature of suffering" and "the flashbacks, while dramatically convenient, are intrusive and make the movie choppy".